When four young men were cast in the television roles of a struggling rock band inspired by The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, few could have predicted the impact The Mon
When four young men were cast in the television roles of a struggling rock band inspired by The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, few could have predicted the impact The Monkees would make on music and pop culture at large, an impact that still reverberates 50 years later.
Assembled in Los Angeles in 1965 by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the television series The Monkees, the quartet of Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, and the late Davy Jones brought a singular mix of pop, rock, psychedelica, Broadway, and country to their music. The show itself, meanwhile, paid tribute not only to The Beatles, but also to the comedy stylings of The Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy as well as the pop-art sensibilities of Warhol and the emerging San Francisco psychedelic scene.
The Monkees’ first single, “Last Train to Clarksville,” was released in August 1966, hitting #1 and serving as advance publicity for their series, which debuted on September 12. When the group’ s self-titled debut album arrived in stores a month later, it quickly headed for the top spot of the Billboard charts, where it would ultimately sit for 13 of the 78 weeks it remained in the Top 200.
In the wake of Jones’ s death on February 29, 2012, the surviving members of the Monkees reunited and performed a series concerts. The shows were greeted with sell-out response and phenomenal reviews. Now, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork carry on that tradition with a full evening of magic music and multi-media splendor, including clips from their Emmy Award winning series. Their new show features all of the Monkees hits, plus an intimate acoustic set and solo spots for each of the singers. This Evening With The Monkees is sure to please every fan of the band.
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